Wearable aptamer-field-effect transistor sensing system for noninvasive cortisol monitoring

• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abk0967
• Publication Date: 2022-01-05T18:51:51Z
• Authors: Bo Wang; Chuanzhen Zhao; Zhaoqing Wang; Kyung-Ae Yang; Xuanbing Cheng; Wenfei Liu; Wenzhuo Yu; Shuyu Lin; Yichao Zhao; Kevin M. Cheung; Haisong Lin; Hannaneh Hojaiji; Paul S. Weiss; Milan N. Stojanović; A. Janet Tomiyama; Anne M. Andrews; Sam Emaminejad
• Keywords: Aptamer

Wearable technologies for personalized monitoring require sensors that track biomarkers often present at low levels. Cortisol—a key stress biomarker—is in sweat nanomolar concentrations. Previous wearable sensing systems are limited to analytes the micromolar-millimolar ranges. To overcome this and other limitations, we developed a flexible field-effect transistor (FET) biosensor array exploits previously unreported cortisol aptamer coupled nanometer-thin-film In2O3 FETs. Cortisol levels were determined via molecular recognition by aptamers where binding was transduced electrical signals on The physiological relevance of as biomarker demonstrated tracking salivary participants Trier Social Stress Test establishing correlations between diurnal saliva samples. These motivated development on-body validation an aptamer-FET array–based smartwatch equipped with custom, multichannel, self-referencing, autonomous source measurement unit enabling seamless, real-time sensing.